


At His Side

by 1000Needles



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 20:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16583600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000Needles/pseuds/1000Needles
Summary: Things were never the same after the queen died.





	At His Side

Things were never the same after the queen died.

To be sure, by that time His Majesty had patched it up with Cid. Patched with strained correspondence a few times a year, like cardboard in an old shoe. His relationship with Weskham was not just worn thin but severed completely. After their journey, the king’s steward had returned to Lucis once and never again. 

The occasion was the birth of the prince, celebrated with far less pomp than would normally befit the emergence of new royalty. Aulea was already sick then. Weskham had leaned over the cradle and said brusquely, “He’s a Caelum, all right.” 

“What do you mean by that?” the queen asked, too tired to be offended. 

“He has his father’s eyes.” Clarus knew him well enough to hear the lie in his voice, but he bowed his head and said nothing. The quarrel had not been without merit, and although he had remained loyally at Regis’s side, he held no ill will for his former companions. Cor, hands folded behind his back, was also silent.

“Go now,” the king said. “We weary of your presence.”

“Indeed,” Weskham said, made a clipped bow, and left forever.

After she died, Clarus brought it up. Just once. Not one of those late and terrible nights—he was wiser than that—but a morning when Regis had already been served his coffee and toast, a bare breakfast that made Clarus wince to see it. The king’s hand looked like a bundle of sticks. It trembled as he gripped the cup.

“Your Majesty,” he began, and hesitated. There was a time when his liege would have teased him for stopping there, would have laughed and ordered him to spit out, dammit, I don’t have time for this! That morning he only looked up and waited, as if even yes was too heavy for his tongue.

“Let me ask Weskham to come. Please.”

“Too late for that.”

Clarus wanted to say _he loves you, Reg,_ but the words withered in his throat. Instead he stood at stiff attention while the king pushed crusts around his plate, and wondered how it had come to this. They used to be friends, the five of them. Real friends, not just servants. Even when Weskham did all the cooking, it was understood that he fed them because he enjoyed it. 

Did he enjoy it? Clarus wondered uneasily. Had they ever asked? Had they just assumed he put on the apron out of fun and not obligation? Weskham was the smartest of them all. He should have been at the king’s side, sweeping over the map with his keen eye and finding the Empire’s weak spots with unerring precision. Instead he was washing cocktail glasses for rich tourists on the other side of the ocean. Well, they’d all made their choices. 

It had been a long trip. Some things should have been left unsaid. Cid was never one to mince words, and for once, remarkably, Weskham had taken his side. 

But Clarus still remembered their travels with pleasure. 

He’d been, what? Four-and-twenty. Had they ever been so young? He hadn’t known Florentia, wouldn’t meet her until he was nearly thirty. And then Gladiolus joined them. A difficult birth. He had wanted to hate the squalling thing, blamed himself for getting the child on her. No ancestral line was worth such suffering. But once he held Gladio in his arms he forgot all that. “Flora,” he whispered. “You made this,” and she laughed and said, “ _We_ made this.”

The trip could have gone differently. It would have taken very little to twist the outcome. Not the quarrel, nothing could have altered that, Regis saw no option but to pull the Wall back and only Clarus had agreed with him. 

But one more bottle of Veldorian wine, maybe, one of those golden evenings off the coast of Accordo. He’d been doing pull-ups off the radar arch—not much else to do on the boat while they waited for a response from the embassy—when Regis said, “You never rest.”

He dropped down to the deck, panting, sweat running into his eyes. “Never.”

The prince’s hazel eyes were green in the fading light, the last rays of the sun shining directly into his face. He cupped a hand to shade them. “The tattoo looks good on you.”

Clarus grunted and rubbed a thumb over the whorl of feathers on his wrist. “Healing nicely.”

“Yes,” Regis said, and for a moment their gaze caught. If Cid hadn’t been within earshot at the wheel, maybe. If Clarus hadn’t ducked his head away, deliberately misinterpreting the look of longing on the prince’s face. 

They never spoke of it. 

 

*** 

 

“All this magic,” she said, “and none of you men can find a way to make childbirth safer?”

“Flora. My Flora.” He gripped her hand tighter. “You’re going to be fine.” The words would be more believable if he could stop crying. Be strong, he ordered, she needs you. 

“All this magic, and you only use it for war.” 

This time it really was his fault. They could have stopped after Gladiolus. But she wanted a daughter. They both did.

“Don’t leave me,” he said, his forehead resting against hers. “My dearest love. Don’t go.”

She told him before she died. Iris. A good name. He stood at the foot of the cradle and wept. Iris. He couldn’t hate her, but he couldn’t look at her either. 

He didn’t know where to go. Not their rooms, not with her perfume lingering in the air. Not the barracks. He wouldn’t be able to keep his face on. In the end he took the elevator to a disused floor, a wounded creature seeking a warren. He’d hardly made a dent in the bottle before he shoved it away and curled in on himself, the hurt unbearable. Come back, my Florentia. I need you.

When he stood before the bathroom mirror, he was still sober enough to have steady hands. The drone of the razor was the only noise in the empty offices. His hair fell into the sink in clumps, threads of white twining through chestnut.

“I found you,” Regis said, later. Clarus was slumped in a vacant cubicle, the whiskey cradled to his chest. The king sat down next to him. “I had the guard search every tavern within five miles before I realized you would be alone.”

“I thought you knew me better than that,” Clarus said, resting his head on Regis’s shoulder.

“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Regis admitted. “You’ve never left my side for so long.”

“During work hours, you mean.”

“During work hours. The hair looks good on you.”

“She would have laughed,” Clarus said. His stomach lurched. He pressed his lips tight and breathed through his nose until he choked on the tears. “She would have said, ‘You’re getting gray, old man.’”

“She would have said, ‘Get up off the floor before your legs fall asleep.’” Regis stood, awkwardly, and extended his hand. He still couldn’t bring himself to use the cane. Clarus was ashamed to see his king offering him support. He took the offered hand, but gently, using his own strength to stand.

“I’m not that drunk.”

“I want you to dine in my rooms tonight.”

“I want to be alone, Sire.”

“I know you do. Come with me.”

Clarus followed, as always, at his liege’s command.

It was almost like being four-and-twenty again. They finished all the whiskey. They laughed until their cheeks turned red and their eyes streamed. And when Reggie’s manservant came to undress him and put him to bed, he reached his hand to Clarus again. “Stay here.”

“Sire?” he said helplessly.

“It might be best for you to watch over him tonight,” the manservant said, _sotto voce._

“I heard that,” Regis said. “And I’m not that drunk. Stay with me, Clarus.”

“Yes, Sire.” He lifted his arms and allowed his uniform to be unlaced and set aside. By the time he got in bed, Regis was already snoring.

When he woke the king was sitting up, haggard and red-eyed. Their gaze met, and Clarus remembered the golden evening on the boat. “Ah,” Regis said, rubbing his forehead. “I didn’t do anything, did I?”

“Of course not, Sire. Let me fetch you a potion.”

“You look like you need it more than I do. I’ll ring for Wimbly.”

But neither of them moved.

It took all his strength to hold steady, unblinking. He was trained to duck his head when His Majesty leveled that scrutiny on him. “You’re an attractive man, Clarus,” the king said presently.

“My body is yours, Sire.” He hadn’t intended a brazen statement, he’d meant it at face value; his body was bred and built to serve the man at his side. But Regis’s eyes widened, and Clarus was glad he’d finally said it aloud.

“I remember the day they began this tattoo.” Regis touched it, lightly at first, then deeper, pressing into tissue beneath inked skin. 

“As do I.” It had been a long day, and the temple artist had only completed the outlines of the wings across his upper back. He remembered the sun setting through the great stone arch and the king—no, the prince, Mors was still alive then—passing him the flask of whiskey and holding his hand through the worst of it. He would be forty soon, but the bird still looked good on him. He was proud of that. His skin was growing softer, but his muscles had lost none of their strength.

“You don’t belong to me.” The king hesitated. “You can go now. If that’s what you want.”

“I’ll stay, Reg.” There were strands of gray threaded through his hair, too. Clarus lifted a hand to stroke it, the light and the dark, and he realized he’d forgotten what a lovely smile Regis had, it had been so long since he’d seen it. “I made my choice a long time ago.”

 

*** 

 

 “Clarus,” the king says, “you’re a damned fool.”

“You should see Cor.”

Gladiolus snorts with amusement, his arm slung under his father’s as they hobble up the stairs. “He’s gonna have a toe-shaped bruise in the middle of his forehead.”

“Why, in the name of sweet Eos, were you kicking my marshal in the face?”

“I wasn’t,” Clarus says, grunting in pain as they reach the landing. “I was kicking the sparring dummy and his face got in the way. Gladiolus, I’ll take it from here.”

“No, you won’t,” Gladio says, adjusting his grip. “Almost there. You should’ve seen it, Your Majesty, it was hilarious.” He subsides under Regis’s silent gaze.

Clarus is pale and sweating by the time they arrive at his door. “Send for the physician, Gladiolus,” the king says once they’re done helping him onto the bed.

“Yes, Sire.” Gladiolus bows and departs, closing the door.

“A damned old fool,” the king says with affection. “Give me your foot.”

“It just needs to be iced,” Clarus says, but he extends his leg reluctantly. Regis draws the swollen foot into his lap and begins to unwind the wrappings.

“Kicking at things with your bare feet. And this silly length of fabric is meant to protect you? I blame that new batch of guards. What’s wrong with tradition?”

“It’s excellent for building flexib— _ouch.”_

“So it’s not just the toe. Your ankle’s twisted too.”

“Twisted my ankle a hundred times before.”

“And broken your toes?”

“Every single one,” Clarus says, but he can’t keep his face straight. He bursts out laughing, and the king tries to frown but joins in. 

“You’re beyond hope, my dear. Try not to injure my marshal next time.”

When the physician arrives, she pronounces Clarus confined to bed until the swelling goes down. “Keep the foot elevated and potions every two hours, please. I don’t want to see you in court for at least a week.”

“But—”

“Cor will assist me until my Shield is fully recovered,” the king says implacably. “Thank you. You may leave us.”

“He’ll look ridiculous up there with half his face caved in,” Clarus grumbles.

“Hush. Are you hungry?”

“I’m injured, not ill. Lunch was only an hour ago.”

“I’ll ring for fruit juice.”

“Only if you mean wine.”

“I don’t. You’re supposed to stay hydrated.”

“I’m fine, Reg. Get back to work.”

“And what do you intend to do?”

“I’m sure I can borrow one of those dreadful novels my son is always reading.”

“Might do you good to give your brain a workout for a change.”

“Get the hell out of here.”

“No,” the king says, his smile quirking, and he takes Clarus’s face in his hands. Clarus can’t help it. He is weak to Reggie’s crooked smile, wise and a little sad and now, as he brings his forehead against Clarus’s, teasing and tender. He groans.

“You’re going to be missed in Council.”

“So are you. Scientia can manage that lot.”

“Then we won’t be disturbed for hours.”

“Precisely.” Regis brings his hand to Clarus’s neck. His fingers are cool and smooth, uncalloused. Clarus lets his eyes close. Although he’d never admit it, his foot does hurt badly, despite the potions, and Reggie’s touch is soothing. “Let me get this cloak off and I’ll join you.”

They fit together as if they were designed to be so, Clarus thinks; he’s on his back, the injured foot propped on a cushion, and Reggie lies next to him, his chest against Clarus’s ribs, one knee pulled up so their bodies align perfectly. They kiss languidly, as if they have all the time in the world, which they don’t. That’s why they go so slowly in their brief moments of uninterrupted rest. Regis explores the territory under his fingers with infinite patience. There are so many scars to be traced, so many planes of muscle to map and conquer, Clarus sighing and surrendering under his gentle advance.

“My Shield,” Regis says softly, and his hand drifts lower. Clarus shifts and inhales sharply.

“Reg, I— ow.”

“Stay still. I’ve got you.” The king’s whisper is a faint touch of breath inside the whorl of his ear. “Shhh.”

Clarus turns his face and presses it into Reggie’s neck. His touch is so sure, his stroke so knowing, that Clarus doesn’t trust himself to obey the order to be silent. He groans into the dark safe space, trying not to thrust too eagerly. When he can’t help himself, when his hips lift despite all his intentions, Reggie slows his hand, rubbing unhurried circles with his thumb. “Stay _still,”_ he says, brushing his lips over Clarus’s cropped hair. “You’re going to knock your foot off the pillow.” Clarus shudders and does his best to comply. Pleasure builds low in his stomach, bubbling like sparkling wine, rising until it spills over and he’s pliant as silk in Regis’s hands, speaking words of nonsense against his skin, bucking into his hand.

“Shhh,” the king says again, petting his belly, kissing the top of his head. The warm skin of his neck is damp where Clarus has been panting against it. “Rest.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can follow me at moon-festival.com.


End file.
